Locks and Security News: your weekly locks and security industry newsletter
2nd July 2025 Issue no. 760

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Legal comment: police service of Northern Ireland data breach

The Police Service of Northern Ireland mistakenly revealed details of all its police officers and civilian staff, following a Freedom of Information request.

 Jon Baines, Senior Data Protection Specialist at Mishcon de Reya, commented:

"8th August 2023 was a rather shocking day for data breach announcements – as well as the news that the Electoral Commission had suffered a serious and long-lasting cyber-attack, the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) appears to have inadvertently published the names of all of its officers and civilian personnel, where they are based and their roles.

"Depending on who was able to access the information in the short time it was online, this could present a serious risk to safety. The incident is understood to have been in response to a freedom of information (FOI) request.

"The risks of such inadvertent disclosure of sensitive data when responding to FOI requests has been highlighted for many years, and, no doubt, the Information Commissioner will be looking carefully into this, to see whether PSNI had appropriate technical and organisational measures in place to try to prevent such an incident. Although the Commissioner has a current policy of rarely, if ever, fining public authorities, one cannot discount the possibility if this is deemed to have been a serious infringement."

16th August 2023